


Let Me Hold You

by stardustedknuckles



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Nightmares, please just let them talk, trauma discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27361582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles
Summary: Yasha had known there was more to Beau's experience of the chantry than she was letting on, but it wasn't something she could prove or make herself pry into. Alone in a room with Beau after Jester gleefully took off, Yasha's having the worst time kicking herself for being unable to cross that bridge yet again when she hears Beau start to stir in the bed next to her.So she goes to help, and a lot of things come to light. Beau's not owning up to jack or shit, but if it's for Yasha...she might at least try.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 11
Kudos: 268





	Let Me Hold You

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I lasted one whole day without posting! 
> 
> But I definitely started it yesterday, whoops.
> 
> Big thanks to Ethereal_Bear for letting me basically draft this entire fic through dialogue tags in the discord last night before I fell slap asleep and woke up still thinking about it.

The others weren't subtle, Yasha thought. Least of all Jester.

And coming from Yasha, that was a devastating observation.

After needing to use the teleport unexpectedly, Caleb had been unable to draw up the tower for them all and so they were up in the nearest inn. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was moderately warm and had three rooms. Instead of bunking with Beau and Yasha, Jester had gone to sleep in Caleb and Veth's room. 

"They're going to have an extra empty bed anyway," she said, grinning. "You guys can have some time to figure stuff out." Yasha had been torn between gratitude that Jester was taking the indecision away from her and desperation to have her stay. Either way, she had not dared to look at Beau.

Now she was alone in this bed, Beau passed out in the other barely six feet away.

Stupid, she cursed herself. Everything was set up for her. All she had to do was take the chance.

But she couldn't. Her mind kept replaying Beau's words. "I knew it wasn't you." What had Yasha been expecting? A feeling of absolution? Relief that Beau didn't blame her? Whatever it was, it hadn't happened. She just felt vaguely sick, like the shoe she had been waiting to drop had slipped very suddenly but was still holding on.

She lifted her head and brought it down hard on the pillow once, aggravated. What a dumb metaphor anyway. What kind of situation resulted in shoes landing on heads, and what were the odds it would happen twice? She sighed in frustration and turned her head to watch the rise and fall of Beau's blanket as she slept on, unaware of her surroundings and of Yasha's eyes on her. It felt almost voyeuristic somehow, getting to see Beau's face so slack and relaxed in sleep, and that was _also_ a stupid thought because up until a week ago, they literally slept in the same proximity almost every night.

And Yasha liked her room in the tower, that wasn't it, just that Caleb had put everything in it she'd need except Beau. But there was nothing he could do about that - only she could, and she was dropping the ball and lying in her own rented bed instead, silently fuming and somehow also affectionate all at once.

It was like the warmth that should have come at hearing Beau's words had been seized somehow, twisted through some kind of filter that Yasha couldn't quite put a name to but hurt all the same. They had left Beau's mouth with sweetness and settled in Yasha as poison. She was starting to feel like she wrecked everything she touched - or that touched her.

It was because she was watching Beau and trying to match her steady breathing that she noticed when it started to become irregular. She could see Beau's fingertips starting to twitch on the hand that rested palm up next to her face, could just make out her eyelids starting to flutter. Yasha's brow knit in growing concern. Was she having a nightmare?

It only took a few more seconds to become clear that she was. Beau's eyes screwed shut with a small whimper that cut straight through Yasha, and her feet were on the floor almost before she completed the thought. She hesitated in the space between their beds, hand gently outstretched.

"Yasha."

Every muscle in Yasha's body froze at the fear in Beau's voice, raw and rough with her not conscious to temper it. Beau had never once said her name like that. "Please." Beau's head and leg jerked, and Yasha could see sweat forming on Beau's forehead now. Still, she was powerless to move herself. "It's me." Beau's voice broke on the second word, and Yasha's pooling suspicions of what Beau was dreaming of hardened into cold certainty in her gut.

She placed her hand on the covers over Beau's ankle and said, "Beau. Wake up."

****************

When Beau opened her eyes, she was surprised to find them wet. Moreover, her heartbeat felt like it was in her ears, and her hand when she lifted it to wipe her eyes was shaking. She felt something weighing down the blanket over her leg and moved it a little in confusion, disoriented. There was a quiet shuffling, and then a dim light sprouted from between glowing fingers and she could make out Yasha's form sitting at the end of her bed.

"Sorry," Yasha said quietly. "I thought it best for you to be completely awake before you saw me."

Beau started to ask why, and then she remembered. She'd been dreaming. Bad ones. The chantry again - that one hadn't visited her in a while.

The chantry.

Yasha.

Beau sat up more quickly and scooted a little closer to Yasha. Normally she'd be embarrassed by the way she could feel her hair was unkempt and sweaty, the paleness of her face, the shaking of the hand she slowly lay on Yasha's thigh. But Yasha's glance didn't move from the light between her palms, and Beau had no room to dwell on any of those insecurities.

Nor, apparently, room for awkwardness. "Hey," she said softly.

Yasha's eyes flicked to her face for a moment, then back to the light. "You were dreaming about me." There was no judgment in the statement, no question. Just a kind of confirmation that made Beau's clammy skin itch suddenly.

Yasha's eyes, cold and leaking. The sword that had defended them all, raised over her and glinting in dim light. "It was just a dream, Yash." Something complicated flickered across Yasha's face, making her look distant in spite of the lack of space between them. Beau swallowed hard, willing her hand to stop shaking. If Yasha knew Beau's nightmare had been about her, then she was probably getting lost in her head. "I wasn't lying," she whispered, jostling Yasha's thigh just slightly. "When I said I knew it wasn't you."

Yasha looked at her fully now. In the light from her hands, the upper part of her face was in shadow. It was difficult to make out the colors of her eyes. "Beau," she said. "You were afraid."

"That's what dreams do, man. They-"

"No." Yasha's voice did not raise at all, but it cut Beau off with ease. "When it happened," she said. "When you saw me stand over you with my sword and knew what was coming. You were afraid. That is normal," she added when Beau made to protest again.

Beau's gaze dropped to the covers she was fisting in her free hand. "Not of you," she said. "Of what Obann was going to make you do." She looked back up and layered each word with emphasis. "It. Wasn't. You." She leaned in when Yasha glanced away. In the quiet light spilling from Yasha's hands, the room looked almost magical itself, bathed in a warm glow that made Beau think of honey and warm drinks and glowing angels she might have some scarily deep feelings for. In the light, they seemed less unknowable, closer to the surface. In the light, it felt safe to push past this point of the conversation, just once.

Beau cleared her throat and tightened her grasp on Yasha's thigh. "You're taking blame for Obann's mess, Yash."

Yasha snorted softly, and the light wavered as her fingers curled in a little over it. "Obann's mess," she said distantly. "My hands on the hilt. My sword in your chest." She ignored Beau's almost imperceptible flinch. "My eyes watching the life bleed out of you, the look on your face." She looked at Beau again, and she was startled to see Yasha's eyes glistening just slightly in the dim light. "Obann's mess is what I remember and carry with me. I almost lost you, and they are _my_ memories."

Beau's voice wavered. "I won't let you take the blame for him."

Yasha turned to her, looking slightly surprised. Her eyes searched Beau's face, shadowed from below, and then she lifted a hand to Beau's cheek and tenderly wiped a way a tear that had snuck down to just under her eye. "Is that why you hid it from me?" she asked softly. "That you were afraid?"

Beau's face twisted, trying to keep more tears from coming. There was anger inside of her somewhere, but she couldn't trust that if she found it, it would go in the right place. She just had to see this through, feeling defenseless but somehow sheltered in the light of Yasha's hand. "Can you blame me?" she asked. Yasha's head tilted just slightly. "You saw yourself as a monster," Beau said. "I was so glad to have you back, and then…the Stone Coffin fight…I watched you take those hits and." She glanced down at her hand on Yasha's leg. "You wouldn't talk to anyone. I wasn't sure anymore if we would get to keep you." 

"I'm not going anywhere," Yasha said firmly, and it might have been the light but Beau could swear she saw her lower lip tremble.

"I know that now," Beau said. "And I believe you. But I figured, you know." She shrugged lamely. "It wasn't you and that was enough for me, and the fear was just fear. It'll go away." She placed her free hand over Yasha's where it rested on her cheek. "Why do you need me to be afraid?"

The laugh that blew out of Yasha was equal parts relief and anxiety and affection. To Beau's confused expression, she said, "Because I know how to help fear." She brought the hand holding the light to Beau's lap and deposited it gently on the covers there. It shimmered, indistinct and intangible and shifting as Yasha pulled her legs up onto the bed fully so that her knees touched Beau's. Her hand rested gently over Beau's as she said, "I can't take the full weight of your complete faith in me about this. Not yet." Beau could feel another tear coming, blinked this one away furiously as Yasha continued. "But I have spent whole nights thinking up ways I might try and comfort you. You just never gave me an opening."

Beau's smile was fractured. "Yeah that sounds like me."

Yasha leaned forward and kissed Beau's forehead just lightly. It felt right to her, completely separate from all of her stumbling attempts to tell Beau how she felt about her. This wasn't that. This was work that needed doing, and finally knowing what it was. This was what lay under the complicated bits. Beau was her friend and so very dear to her, and now she had a way to help her.

Beau was blinking owlishly when she pulled back. Yasha's hand tightened on hers. "But now I know," she said. "There's something that needs fixing, and I…" she faltered for a moment. Beau's hand turned under hers to squeeze gently. Yasha looked at them together on Beau's knee as she said, "if you'll let me, I can undo some of what has been done to us both. Rebuild." Deep breath. "All you have to be is human," she said. "Not brave for my sake."

Beau's laugh was shaky and small, but not unkind. "You need me to face a fear for both our sakes, huh?" She shook her head, still smiling. "We're fucked."

"We aren't," Yasha insisted. She moved her shaky hand from Beau's face to press fingertips gently, oh so gently, against the puckered scar jutting from above Beau's breastband. "I believe in you."

Beau's eyes dropped to the light. From Yasha's angle, it seemed to pool upwards so that Beau's left iris glowed with it. "Ah," she said delicately. "I see what you mean about the faith." She hesitated. "Look, Yash, I…I'm glad to know there's a way to help you through this. But." She drew inwards, gently pulled Yasha's hand from her chest back to her face. "I'm not sure I can do that on command. It's hard to know you're relying on me, like. To say stuff out loud. I don't…I don't know if I know how." Yasha waited quietly as she searched for the last words of what she was trying to say. "I think I'm glad I had the nightmare," she said, almost to herself. "I hate that it was out of my control, but." She lifted their joined hands in demonstration. "This part's nice."

Yasha flushed just a little. "It is," she agreed. "And sitting here with you, cards on the table like this…" she chewed her lip, watching Beau somewhat anxiously. "It makes me want to…move closer. Not away."

Beau's turn to flush now at the affirmation, nodding. "Yeah. Me too, and that's…new. I just don't have much practice, and I… don't want to fuck up your journey because like. I can't figure my shit out."

"There is much of this that only I can control, I think," Yasha agreed quietly. "But I have already been working on it. The dreams I had, the wings. Just talking to you this morning, even." The air between them turned slightly awkward with the reminder of the thing between them they weren't talking about. Awkward, but familiar and sweet and weighty with potential.

Beau's ears were red. "You said 'done to us,' earlier," she said quickly. Yasha blinked at her, and the tension evaporated. "Talking about fixing things," Beau elaborated. "You said you could help undo what has been done to us both." She smiled. "That's the first time you haven't blamed yourself." And even though they had only spoken once about it, even though Beau had no way of knowing for certain just how often Yasha had done just that, it was not a question.

Yasha felt known. "I get the feeling it might not be the last, either."

In the silence that settled, Beau wondered at the ease with which they sat, hands joined. It was the most intimate either of them had ever been with each other - to say nothing of the conversation - and they should have been retreating now. The part where Beau fucked up and said something stupid was about ten sentences ago, and the part where Yasha lost the ability to think seemed absent entirely. What was different about this? What made this easy, and how could she do it again later?

"Yash?" Her eyes had also been on their hands, and now they came to meet Beau's attentively. "How long…fuck." She so badly did not want to mess this up. "Has this been possible the whole time?" Yasha looked a little mystified. Beau gestured to them with her head. "This," she said. "Have I been holding us up?"

"Oh," said Yasha quietly.

Beau's stomach plummeted, but she said nothing.

Yasha's thumbs moved absentmindedly over the tops of Beau's hands in thought. It seemed incredible to Beau that she wouldn't know, be able to feel how much that simple comfort was soothing her and scaring her simultaneously. "I don't think either of us can make this happen alone," she said finally. "Or not happen."

Beau smiled in spite of herself. "Oh, I know I can't make it happen alone."

Yasha ducked her head, but her voice was earnest. "I'm sorry I let it be just you for so long." She hadn't meant to. Wherever they were headed together, Yasha would regret every day she'd spent working up her nerve, view it as a loss of precious time.

Beau blinked. "Wait," she said. "When _did_ it stop being just me? Was it not like...a month ago?" As Yasha drew in a breath and looked up at the ceiling, Beau mentally corrected herself. _This_ was clearly the moment she'd fucked it up. That was damn near a direct question about the thing they weren't talking about, and Yasha was already getting red and stammering a little.

"I…I guess I did finally figure it out pretty recently, you know, um. The whole thing." Yasha's hands were tense now under Beau's, but she didn't pull away. "I thought I had lost you, and that was kind of uh…a realization I couldn't deal with for a while. But it's not all tragedy!" She rushed, and in spite of her nerves that she'd accidentally killed the whole thing they had going on, Beau couldn't help but smile. "It's not like 'oh I almost killed you and now I feel bad so we're going to pretend that's the same as -" she broke off and searched for new words while Beau worked very hard to rearrange her face into something that didn't look like one whole dumbass expositor of the Cobalt Soul making moon eyes over a word she had no way of actually predicting - "the Harvest Festival!" Yasha managed, and then her hands left Beau's to cover her eyes.

Which was fortunate, because there was absolutely nothing Beau could do about her expression right now.

"The festival?" In her wildest dreams, Beau might have guessed that maybe, just maybe, Yasha might have felt something a little outside of friendship in the couple of weeks before Obann took her. And even that would have been shaky; Yasha was right to guess that Beau had wondered how much sympathy and guilt played into things.

But the festival?

Her mind reeling, she found her voice. "What was it?" she asked. "Did I…do something?"

All of the gravitas of the earlier conversation seemed to have packed up and left. This was whatever got left in the wake of it. Relief, joy, and a healthy dose of the awkwardness they'd come to expect. Yasha shook her head vigorously and after a deep breath through her fingers, slowly pulled her hands away. Beau thought she may have never seen anything that made her feel quite as soft as the brilliant shade of crimson she could make out on Yasha's face in the light. She was wearing just her breastband above the waist, so Beau could see it from her collarbones to the tips of her ears. About her? Yasha was blushing like that about her?

"It was kind of a culmination?" Yasha managed. "You just looked really cute with your caramel apple and then the wooden swords, and then there was the trash monster fight."

"Oh gods, really?"

Yasha's hands waved. "I know it's ridiculous."

"No no," Beau assured. "It's not. I mean. Kind of. But not you, the." She couldn't help smiling. "We got poisoned together." That had sounded way better in her head, for some reason, so she hurried on. "So when we were on that fake date to get information on Trent?"

Yasha rubbed the back of her neck. "It was nothing clear cut, just. I was starting to try and figure out what about you made me so nervous. The others were already making me less nervous, but you…" she looked down at her knee, smiling to herself. "Molly thought it was really funny."

Beau grinned. "Of course he did." She thought Yasha's smile might fade into something more wistful at the thought of Molly, but when she looked back up at Beau across the light between them, she just looked soft and a little shy. Beau didn't know exactly what to do with that, so she stayed very still and hoped that her face wasn't doing anything to discourage her.

The tension grew as they watched each other, and Beau couldn't be certain but it felt like maybe she'd won a game of chicken when Yasha finally said, "So, should we sleep and get ready for tomorrow?"

Beau had that rare moment of disappointment at having won, stammering, "Oh uh, yeah. Y-yeah good idea, let's."

"Yeah, I'll just -" Yasha moved to stand up and Beau squeezed her eyes shut and reached, grasping Yasha's wrist and not daring to look when she froze. There was a long moment of silence, during which Beau called herself every name she could think of and tried to make her mouth move, but again Yasha beat her to it. "Do you…want me to sleep on this one? With you?"

Beau exhaled with a kind of laugh. "It's not a favor I'm asking, Yash, I mean. If you wanted to there's room, but don't feel-" she pulled her feet up with a surprised sound as Yasha broke her grip and turned off the light at the same time before crawling across the bed to Beau's other side and presumably getting comfortable.

So they were here, under the same covers. Yasha could feel Beau's body heat and knew she was feeling the same. She felt a little guilty having the advantage of dark vision, but it also meant that Beau couldn't see how she was looking at her, and that was good because Yasha imagined the face she was making was probably absolutely ridiculously sappy and she would deserve every bit of teasing she'd get for it.

"There's room on the pillow," Beau said woodenly.

Yasha glanced at it, then back at Beau. "Okay." she was already propped up and her side, so she pulled herself forward until she was almost pressed up against Beau's back before hesitating. Now she could really feel the heat from Beau and from herself. "Is it okay if I just-?"

"Yep." Beau squirmed backwards just a little to meet her halfway and then she was _there_ and Yasha was holding her, finally, and the only reason she wasn't embarrassed by the sigh she gave when her arm was securely around Beau's waist like it belonged there was that Beau's was even louder, and it made her giggle just a little bit as Beau pretended to be mad about it. Yasha's arm was long and bent strangely like this, and after a moment of hesitation she brought her hand up some so that it rested on the bed directly in front of the scar on Beau's chest.

Beau's hand caught hers gently and pressed it against the scar, and Yasha thought she might burst - though with joy or guilt, she couldn't be sure. "Go a'sleep," Beau muttered fondly into her side of the pillow.

Yasha shifted her other arm so that it rested over the top of the pillow above Beau's head and hoped it wouldn't be too dead in the morning. "Goodnight, Beau."

A smile in her sleepy voice: "Night."

**Author's Note:**

> Title from one o' those good good Ashley Johnson Yasha 3 playlist songs.


End file.
